Ship Memories

[cappy]

there was a quite new brighton in the tyne about 62 or so one of my mates did a long one in her they were renowned for that and to be avoided chapmans unless you wanted to escape .....proper old tramp company .....always called bad feeders ..but wernt they all called that ...lol...cappy

[Keith Tindell]

We always moaned about the food, the steak on board was bloody useless etc, not as good as the ones in BA etc, bloody hell, never ever saw steak at home, apart from stewing steak. We were young and always ready for a meal, looking back, lived a good life, kt

[robpage]

Clan Line great food , no complaints

[Louis the fly]

there was a quite new brighton in the tyne about 62 or so one of my mates did a long one in her they were renowned for that and to be avoided chapmans unless you wanted to escape .....proper old tramp company .....always called bad feeders ..but wernt they all called that ...lol...cappy

Only the ones you were on , the spuds were never peeled properly.

[Bill Cameron]

One of my best memories was of my first ship the MV Broughty, a Groningen built puddle jumper, of the Dundee, Perth and London shipping coy, 13 of a crew, I was the cabin boy, and the cook/Steward was an ex Dutch Submariner who married a Dundee lass, he was a great cook, his corned beef hash was to die for his name was Frank Westerbook

[cappy]

Only the ones you were on , the spuds were never peeled properly.

##well i always was told ..leave the eyes in it will help the guy on lookout

[Captain Kong]

You all seem to have sailed on good feeders, on this one, NICHOLAS K, the only fresh meat was the cockroaches.
I wrote this Seven years ago...........................
.
NICHOLAS K.
I joined the Nicholas K in Liverpool at the end of 1954, she had completed discharging grain from Argentina and had loaded fertilizer in bags for Cochin, India.
She was a Fort built in 1943 and was now owned by Kiriakides of Athens.
She was manky, the accommodation was rough, four seamen to a cabin next the steering flat. the other two had three seamen in. Across the alleyway were nine Somali firemen. On deck were two mess rooms one for Deck and one for the Firemen.
We sailed outward bound for Suez and then called in at Aden for bunkers. The cabins were stinking hot and mostly we slept on deck on top of the poop. The food was diabolical, after three days at sea we were on our `pound and pint`, our `whack`
6 ounces of fresh offal per man per day per haps.
6 ounces of brackish water per man per day perhaps.
Or so it seemed. We got one small can of `Connie Onnie` condensed milk, every ten days. If you left your tin in the mess room all hands would use it, you had to keep your own stores locked up in your locker. Then we would have to stick a few match sticks in the holes to keep out the cockroaches.
The only fresh meat meat we got were the cockroaches. Did you know, pound for pound there is more protein in a cockie than in a beef steak.
So the Steward said we were well fed.
The ship was full of big rats, yellow coloured ones,, from the previous cargo of grain, These would get everywhere including the accommodation, it was diabolical. The Chippy would put rat traps out on deck every night and they were always full in the morning and he then emptied them over the side into the sea.
The fresh water was rationed, on the side of the house on the poop was a pump and we had to push this back and forth to pump up water from the after peak to a tank on top of the poop housing. There was a pad lock on the pump and the mate had the key, he would unlock it for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. Then no more water until the following day.
When we got to Cochin the Steward had ordered fresh meat to be delivered.
So one day a little Indian fellow came to the gangway with 12 goats, "Where`s the fresh meat"?.... "This is very fresh meat Sahib".
So we got them up the gangway and the Chippy had to build a pen from the dunnage for them on the afterdeck as they galloped all over the decks and up the alleyways. It was just as well they were on the hoof, we had no fridges on this ship. We got them a load of straw to eat while they awaited their fate.
When the Cook wanted meat he took one out, it was struggling and bleating, must have known what was going to happen. Then killed it by beating it over the head with a hammer and then cut its throat and hung it up off an awning spar, draining the blood into a cut down oil drum. The Galley boy would then gut it and skin it. Chop it up and a handful of curry powder and we were eating like champions.
We sailed then light ship to Port Lincoln in the Spencer Gulf in Australia for a cargo of wheat. The ship had a contract for two years to take wheat to Calcutta and then load iron ore in Vizaghapatam, down the coast from Calcutta, for the Steel works in Whyalla, again in the Spencer Gulf. We were going demented over that, two years, we were innocent men, what had we done to deserve a sentence like that.
We arrived in Port Lincoln and anchored on a Friday morning. They would take us along side on Monday.
That afternoon, the Captain told us to lower a boat , he, the Mate and the Chief Engineer were to go to the Agents Office. We rowed them ashore to the pier, they were each carrying a small bag.
Don`t wait for us, the Captain said, we will get a boat from ashore to bring us back.
We took the boat back to the ship and hoisted it back inboard.
A nice peaceful weekend at anchor, no work to do, lovely.
On Monday a tug came out to us with a Pilot. Where was the Captain, Mate and Engineer?. The Second Mate was running around like a scalded cat. No sign of them, in the end he decided to take it alongside. When we berthed the Agent came on board and said he had never seen the three of them. They had obviously skinned out and disappeared.
It must have been a bad ship when the Captain, Mate and Chief Engineer jump ship.
We loaded the grain in bags and when we had completed and battened down the Second Mate and Agent had been on to the owners about the loss of these men. The Second Mate had a Masters Certificate, so he went as Master, the Agent found a Mate who had jumped ship in Adelaide and was awaiting deportation so he was brought up to Lincoln by the Immigration man and put on board.
We sailed then for Calcutta, what a stinking hole that was, we were moored to buoys in the Hoogly and discharging into barges. The decks were full of screaming Indian dockers, spitting red beatle juice all over our decks that were covered in spilt grain. All the accommodation was battened down, because they would have been in it, using the bathrooms, and in the cabins. It was stinking hot and a mess.
The worse part of being in Calcutta is up River they push their dead into the river and then the corpses float down and get fouled of the anchor cable or rudder, these would be bloated and stinking, with the `Shytalks` sat on them pecking away.
Then one day we got the good news. Load a cargo of manganese ore in Vizaghapatnam and take it to Birkenhead. Fanbloodytastic.
We were singing all the way home.
We walked down the gangway in Birkenhead, six abreast, whistling, we were so thin.
I paid off, thankful that we didn`t have to do the two years, when I got home Mother could hardly recognise me, I had lost so much weight. There was more fat on a cold chip.

Cheers
Brian

[happy daze john in oz]

Never sailed on a bad feeder.

If in catering you could not get a good feed then you were doing something wrong.

[robpage]

I was on a tanker , where the Chief Steward , bought cheap , small sized eggs , strange brands of canned and packaged goods , we used to fish when loading , the cook did great fresh fish , grilled , stuffed , fried , when the Chief Steward was replaced , the food was brilliant , no obscure brands , no tough meat , no cheap for cheap's sake

[happy daze john in oz]

Rob, the second steward on most UCL were a bit like that.
Tight as a ducks **** when it came to items such as dry tea, tea cups and tea spoons.

Thankfully I am a coffee only man.